It nourishes the heart with a breath without trouble, an art that solves the epidemic at the edges of its sockets

The air, if its breezes soften in a town, will soften the mixture of its people

Every picture of people is in their homes, and every picnic is a soul in its hills

Had it not been for matters and livelihoods that were estimated, he would not have left Damascus, present in it

These are verses from the poem in which al-Buhturi - the Abbasid era poet who was born in Manbij, to the northeast of Aleppo at the beginning of the third century AH - embodies the beauty and splendor of Damascus, the city that was the capital of one of the greatest and largest states throughout the ages;

The state or the Umayyad Caliphate (41-132 AH).

A city that enchanted everyone who trampled on its riches due to its ancient civilization, the beauty of its architecture, and the greenness of its ghouta. The first alphabet in the world about 3500 years ago.

A legacy that made Muhammad Kurd Ali (1876-1953) - the first Syrian minister of education and knowledge, founder and head of the first Academy of the Arabic language in Damascus - spend dozens of years trying to date it and its Ghouta, so he wrote his two books “Damascus, the City of Magic and Poetry” and “Ghouta of Damascus.”

In this presentation, we seek to highlight Damascus as it appeared in the eyes of this thinker and historian, who spent most of his life in this city as a rich lover.

Damascus..between revival and decadence

The people of Damascus knew the Arabic language centuries before the Arab Islamic conquest, thanks to the Arab Christians who inhabited the Levant at the time, and who quickly preferred their national affiliation over their religious affiliation, and stood by the Arab conquerors;

Damascus was conquered by Abu Ubaidah al-Jarrah and Khalid ibn al-Walid after a fight, which was followed by negotiations with the Byzantine garrison to surrender, and Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab delivered it peacefully in the year 14 AH.

The Umayyad Caliph Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan laid the foundation for the Umayyad king in Damascus, and he was tolerant;

He appointed Christian Arabs to some high positions in the state, and in his army there was a mixture of non-Arab or Islamic elements from the Nabataeans, Jarajima or the Maradas who resisted the Umayyads. Muawiyah succeeded Yazid, then Muawiyah, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, and after him a series of Umayyad caliphs;

They made the Umayyad state one of the largest ruling states throughout history.

It extended during the reign of Hisham bin Abd al-Malik, the tenth Umayyad caliph, from China in the east to southern France in the west.

Although the Caliph Marwan bin Muhammad was one of the most just and benevolent of the Umayyad caliphs, the caliphate fell on his reign, so the Abbasids took control of Damascus, and entered into a bloody conflict with the Umayyads until they seized the city in the year 132 AH, after a month and a half of civil resistance.

The Abbasid caliphs would not have accepted Damascus as the capital of the new caliphate, especially since it was the center of political weight for their Umayyad rivals, and this was reflected on the city and its political role. Muhammad Kurd Ali believes that Damascus turned during the Abbasid caliphate into a mere "state reed".

Damascus was then controlled by the Tulunids;

They established an emirate that included Egypt and the Levant (254-293 AH), then the Ikhshidids (323-356 AH), and after them the Fatimids (297-559 AH), where Muhammad Kurd Ali describes the last century of Damascus under the Fatimid rule as "the most evil of the centuries", when the country was hit by a famine and spread The plague, and only 3,000 of its 500,000 residents remained.

After that, Damascus did not witness glory except during the era of the two states of Al-Nouri and Al-Salihiyah, when the Turkish Prince Nur al-Din Zangi restored Damascus its political position, and during his reign a great building was built, and grievances were lifted from its people, and after him Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi followed the same approach;

The city returned to its former glory as a political and military center of gravity.

As for the era of the Ottoman Empire, Muhammad Kurd Ali - who was raised by a Kurdish father and a Circassian mother - believes that the Ottoman caliphs - despite building schools, mosques, takiyas and khans - did not improve the administration of Damascus.

Al-Hamidiyah market derives its name after its construction during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid I in 1780 AD (Ottoman Archive - Istanbul University)

gates of Damascus

A mosque in half a city..a river and Ghouta Khamila

Damascus in its descriptions is a paradise immortal satisfied

Do you not see that its gates are made of eight?

This is how one of the later Damascenes summarized the description of the city, which spreads out in the form of a rectangle with square sides, and has 8 gates, of which only 5 remain today, the most famous of which are: Touma, Sharqi, and Al-Jabiya.

It is surrounded from the east, west and south by a lush Ghouta, in which there are many trees of walnuts, figs, berries and olives;

Attracted kings and princes, and they resided there and built palaces enchanted by captivating hearts.

The greatest straight street that crosses the city from east to west seems to be one of the most beautiful few monuments left by pre-Islamic nations and civilizations, in addition to some castles and fortresses.

During the Umayyad era, the city witnessed an architectural boom that was manifested in the Emirate Palace and the Umayyad Mosque, and the latter, Muhammad Ali Kurd wrote in his description, “It was built on marble pillars, in which the image of every city and tree in the world, made with mosaics, gold, green and yellow, the length of the original sanctuary was 1300 feet, and its width was a thousand He came, and Al-Waleed spent two years on it, the tax of the Levant, so the most beautiful mosque in Islam came, befitting the capital of the Islamic caliphate, and it was said that it constituted half of the city.

Caliph Walid bin Abd al-Malik was not satisfied with the Umayyad Mosque as a decoration for Damascus, so he increased it by digging wells, spreading beacons in the streets, building homes for the sick and mosques, and everything that facilitates life and brings comfort.

Describing the architecture of Damascus in modern times, Muhammad Kurd Ali writes, “A time came and urbanization was connected to Damascus from the west to the hill. in it as congregants line up.”

One of the most beautiful monuments of the Turkish era is the Hijaz railway, which Muhammad Kurd Ali wrote in describing it, “It was 1,303 kilometers long, and it stretched from Damascus to Medina. And by the tram that connected its north to its south and west to its north-east until it reached Douma, the capital of Ghouta.

Until the Ottomans entered Damascus, there were 7 houses of the Qur’an, 18 houses of hadith, 122 schools in Ibn Hanbali, Shafi’i, Hanafi, and Maliki schools, 4 schools of medicine, a school of engineering, 26 khanqa (watercourse), 23 ribat (shelter for the poor), and 26 zawiya (shelter for the poor). .

The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus in the Ottoman era (Ottoman Archive - Istanbul University)

A city without libraries

Damascus embraced writers, scholars and artists since the dawn of history, and provided them with a free atmosphere in which they excelled in thought, poetry and preaching, until the city was called in the Umayyad era the capital of a thousand poets and poets due to the large number of poets who came to it from all parts of the caliphate.

Even before the Arab conquest, the people of the city knew scholars in medicine, geography, engineering, mathematics, astronomy, preaching, rhetoric and wisdom, and the lavish name of Saint John of Damascus, nicknamed “Path of Gold,” and alongside him a group of Nestorians and Jacobites.

During the Umayyad era, Bishr ibn al-Walid al-Umayyad - nicknamed the wise man of the Marwan family and the scholar of Quraish - ordered a group of Greek philosophers who were mastering Arabic to be brought from Egypt to Damascus. Islam, and she was in Damascus.

Among the poets of that era were those who came to Damascus and those who lived there, such as Al-Akhtal Al-Taghlibi, the genius of Bani Shayban, and Khalid bin Yazid bin Muawiyah, who was a poet, orator, and eloquent collector.

Since that day, Damascus has known an unparalleled richness in science, literature, jurisprudence and poetry. Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi invested in jurisprudence, engineering and medicine.

So he poured his money on 600 jurists, and Muhammad Kurd Ali points out that during the time of Salah al-Din, scholars and scholars of Islam immortalized their name;

In medicine and engineering, Yahya al-Dabbas, Muhammad Abu al-Hakam, Ibn al-Naqqash, Ibn al-Badhukh, and among the jurists and scholars are Ibn Asaker al-Dimashqi and al-Husayn al-Asadi, the Musnad of Damascus.

During the Umayyad Caliphate, Damascus became famous for its singing and music until the Umayyad family became composers and singers, and with the advent of the sixth century of migration, there were many musicians, including tanburis and legalists.

Here, Muhammad Kurd Ali records that the Damascenes "never missed an evening of their evenings or a picnic of their outings of musicians and singers, and even the leaders of appearances never refrained from raising their voices by singing and singing."

There is a difference between Damascus in ancient times and Damascus today;

The city turned from the incubator of the first bookcase in Islam and hundreds of libraries, to a city that repels publishers and intellectuals who are eager for books;

In the past few years, many ancient Damascene libraries were forced to close their doors, such as the Maysaloun Library, the Al-Waqah Library, and finally the Nobel Library, which has been considered - since the seventies of the last century - a prominent cultural landmark of the capital, Damascus.